Wall Street Journal Calls on the IIM Bluff...

[2gud]

Wall Street Journal Calls on the IIM Bluff...
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CAT Fiasco: IIMs Need to Practice What They are Supposed to Preach

The weekend CAT fiasco, in which 50 of the 360 centres had systems fail and students could not take the test, has reinforced the perception of poor coordination and collaboration of IIMs. Going by feedback from some of the candidates who took the test , it seems they not only failed to manage the technical aspects of the test but also did a bad job in training the staff present in various centres. If good management is about reducing uncertainty and systematic errors, then the IIMs have failed that test .The way the coordination committee of the IIMs reacted to the fiasco is also a matter of concern.




It's unacceptable, that in spite of having sufficient time and resources, IIMs couldn't get their act together. They can't get away by passing the buck to the vendor Prometric (part of the US-based Educational Testing Services) which was entrusted to conduct the test. No doubt this agency which is supposed to be experienced in conducting similar tests like GMAT did very unprofessional work; but eventually it was the responsibility of the IIMs to get the job done from the vendor. It is all the more disappointing as IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore are known for their expertise in IT management. Seems now, limited only to teaching.
To stress test any software before actually using it is a common practice in IT companies which obviously was ignored in this case. Had full scale trial runs been taken at every centre the inconvenience caused to candidates would have been avoided. They could have also considered the GMAT model which is conducting the tests as a continuous process at few selected places.
First-hand accounts indicate, that the testing of equipment and training of the staff was grossly inadequate. Even in those centres where the system worked, there were some other glitches as has been reported in the media. In some centres the test was delayed, in some cases the computers shut down in the middle of the test. The time taken to fix the system in case of hang ups gave some candidates a time advantage to solve questions. A few minutes advantage can mean a lot especially when the percentile difference of those who make it to top IIMs and who don't is very narrow. In some centres the staff did not properly brief students. On the whole the credibility of the online test has taken a big hit.
On top of it, the coordination committee did not apologise to candidates who could not take the test. Instead, the coordinator of CAT came out with a statement that for such a big experiment small errors are bound to happen. First of all it is no small error when about 14 percent of centres fail and over 10% of candidates couldn't take the test. It also meant time and money loss for many candidates especially those who travelled long distances and stayed in rented places to give the test.
IIMs need to introspect and see to it that next year in not a single centre there is systematic failure. But before that, immediately, they must apologise to the candidates who were let down by the system.
—Premchand Palety is chief executive of the Centre for Forecasting & Research, or C fore.

LINK

[echarcha]

please post link.

[Ravi]

IIMs may be incompetent, but how the fuck are troglodytes at Wall Street Journal qualified to call them out?

[echarcha]

IIMs are respected internationally. So its very normal to expect that such problems would not have occured. There seems to be no risk analysis and mitigation plans in place for this CAT exam.

[2gud]

One more effing "case study" for future IIM bol bacchans... Looks like they never heard terms like UAT or load testing. Learning experience, my foot! This is "reinventing the wheel" experience. One does not need to know all things, if you don't know something, you can at least involve those who know their stuff! Why did they go to Prometric? There are so many well known Indian IT companies, who at least know that their products need to be tested well before release.

They are saying the latest McAfee and Norton won't catch Conficker and Nimda viruses, who are they fooling? They are setting a very bad example to the very students to whom they should teach accountability and responsibility of failure. Never accept a failure, push the blame!!

Dreaded Conficker is CAT's bane

Ahmedabad: The test delivery systems of CAT-2009 have been affected by the Conficker and W32/Nimda viruses, Prometric, which is conducting the test, has said. The entrance exam to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), being administered in stages over several days, had to be put on hold for more than 7,000 candidates by day three.

Confirming the names of the viruses, Charles Karnan, chief operating officer, Prometric, said the problem has been a learning experience. "The lesson we have learnt is that we should not have used public infrastructure for the computerised test."
Ramesh Nava, vice president and general manager, Prometric (Asia Pacific, Japan and Africa), said: "Unfortunately, the viruses and malware that attacked the test delivery system were not detected by the antivirus software at the testing centres."
On the third day of the test, 33 computer labs across various centres in different cities remained to be restored.
Samir Barua, director, IIM-Ahmedabad, said: "The test failed in the first few days this year. However, since this is the first time the test is computerised, it is not very surprising.
"We have contacted the candidates whose tests have to be called off through SMS and email. We will make sure that all candidates get another opportunity to test. While we will try to reschedule according to their convenience, the flexibility will be limited."
CAT-2009 is being conducted in 361 labs across 104 centres. The arrangement accommodates 17,000 students a day. Around 2.4 lakh candidates have registered for CAT 2009.


Source

[echarcha]

Ask DRDO to indigenise the test delivery system and all problems will go away

[rameshp]

Originally Posted by 2gud

They are setting a very bad example to the very students to whom they should teach accountability and responsibility of failure. Never accept a failure, push the blame!!

Dont you think its makes IIM all the more appealing? You are not even enrolled into the academy and they are already teaching you the most important lesson of being a management professional!

[desichacha]

just again proves what I have been preaching for a decade now
1. In India no backup plan exists and most think having buffer is inversly proportional to your **** size
2.No one wants to plan and waste time on things like discussions etc ( meeting are reason western world is stupid ) because everyoen can think best solution
3. IIM study style is not wholistic..harvard case studies to bunch who kids who have not even stepped in western world does the following
3.1 make them dream western and apply thoda fundas in indian business
3.2 never gives them ability to relate to what is beng taught

4. IIM are good Msc finance schools..nothing beyond that

anyways ...keep the dream on

[Indian]

Originally Posted by desichacha

just again proves what I have been preaching for a decade now
1. In India no backup plan exists and most think having buffer is inversly proportional to your **** size
2.No one wants to plan and waste time on things like discussions etc ( meeting are reason western world is stupid ) because everyoen can think best solution
3. IIM study style is not wholistic..harvard case studies to bunch who kids who have not even stepped in western world does the following
3.1 make them dream western and apply thoda fundas in indian business
3.2 never gives them ability to relate to what is beng taught

4. IIM are good Msc finance schools..nothing beyond that

anyways ...keep the dream on

I hope you are pointing to prometric and their process (the IT vendor) and not the IIMs.
prometric should had an idea of what kind of system they are going to develop and deliver and ensure its stability.

how IIM's teachings and their quality is measured against the quality of a product developed a third party vendor ? They are not IITs please ..they are IIMs.

to do a successful business we need to step into west and understand the streets there ? to do business.. all it needs is business sense..a sense of loss and profit.
I know many people do not like mba's here...but i wonder why corporates world wide recruite the mbas..forget about IIMs but also grads from other countries as well. And why they do not recruit just technical geniuses on every top slot.


i agree with your points about backup plan and discussions.

[desichacha]

1. Most ofthe world used to and still hire geniouses at the top post ( Eric is Phd, Jack Welsh is pHd same with Boeing andmost of the pharama companies

2. MBA prominence is a fairly recent phenomemon and very young folks doing MBA is infact from mid 80s (don't keep taking ur life span as standard for busienss or human kind) except wealthy kids who were preparingfor inheritence

3. WE ARE ALL responsible for our suppliers dude..what is this logic..If i ( or Amtha or Tantric's sethiji ) sell crap at our shop we cannot get away by saying supplier fucked up. I want to see due diligence report which IIM conduced before giving prometric exam.

Let me tell you what happened ( I assure you real story is 90% around this)

1. Initial crap - We need to conduct adaptive tests or test like GMAT ( without a comprehensive report on why present system doesn't work. I am yet to see a report with drawbacks on present system, advantages of new one)
2.In true modern INdian manaagment and pysche style , we need to do it now...kal se kar do ...
3. Then came question..how do we do it?..since in their mind they are trying to do a GMAT kinda thing..give it to people who conduct GMAT...while forgetting the following

Let me tell u couple of things you might not have yet thought
1. How do we stop large scale cheating. If 5 gusy can get same centre..birbe the centre and give paper together ( even if it is CCTV we canont expect them to view all tapes). yes it can happen in pen/paper too but large number of students help curb this kinda crime. GMAT is ok to conduct and aovid above crap beause gmat score is just one part of the selection process. IN a test hwich is 99.99% selection critieria..it is a very dangerous thing

2.What kinda cheating can come up now that exam is spread over 10 days. If a coaching guy send his guys for first 3 days to go and remember questions and real students give test in last 7 ( data bank of one year will be limited na )..

anyways..dude as I KEEP ON SAYING IT IS NOT ABOT TECH V/S MBA.

PROBLEm is about MBA== thinking man..TECH==working man..these are industrial era thinkings

Do a survey of Fortune 500 firms ad you will find shocking very less no of MBA as CEO ....even bank CEOs most of them might be general councel or phd in economics/finance

anyways...

[Indian]

Originally Posted by desichacha

3. WE ARE ALL responsible for our suppliers dude..what is this logic..If i ( or Amtha or Tantric's sethiji ) sell crap at our shop we cannot get away by saying supplier fucked up. I want to see due diligence report which IIM conduced before giving prometric exam.

Let me tell you what happened ( I assure you real story is 90% around this)

1. Initial crap - We need to conduct adaptive tests or test like GMAT ( without a comprehensive report on why present system doesn't work. I am yet to see a report with drawbacks on present system, advantages of new one)
2.In true modern INdian manaagment and pysche style , we need to do it now...kal se kar do ...
3. Then came question..how do we do it?..since in their mind they are trying to do a GMAT kinda thing..give it to people who conduct GMAT...while forgetting the following

Let me tell u couple of things you might not have yet thought
1. How do we stop large scale cheating. If 5 gusy can get same centre..birbe the centre and give paper together ( even if it is CCTV we canont expect them to view all tapes). yes it can happen in pen/paper too but large number of students help curb this kinda crime. GMAT is ok to conduct and aovid above crap beause gmat score is just one part of the selection process. IN a test hwich is 99.99% selection critieria..it is a very dangerous thing

2.What kinda cheating can come up now that exam is spread over 10 days. If a coaching guy send his guys for first 3 days to go and remember questions and real students give test in last 7 ( data bank of one year will be limited na )..

anyways..dude as I KEEP ON SAYING IT IS NOT ABOT TECH V/S MBA.

PROBLEm is about MBA== thinking man..TECH==working man..these are industrial era thinkings

Do a survey of Fortune 500 firms ad you will find shocking very less no of MBA as CEO ....even bank CEOs most of them might be general councel or phd in economics/finance

anyways...

I appreciate many of your ideas , but i am struck with why you could not get a smple fact about IIM's core competency. You think their core competency is in managing administrative tasks of their contractors/vendors ?Why the hell somebody engages in a activity which is not defined as their CORE COMPETENCY ?

IIMs deliver quality managment students , IIMS deliver management lessons...the management science gurus and pundits there do not develop and manage some trivial real estate or IT projects running in their campus.

"We are all responsible for our suppliers" sounds very logical and reasonable business statement, and a statement good enough to make us look modern age hot shot managers. But whom we are dealing with , to whom we are saying this ? the gurus who came from the industry, academics ...and who teach business sense to conduct modern business houses . something slipped away without their knowledge and for which they are not completely responsible , and we are crucifying them .

I know Prometric...and their idiotic systems. thousands of fake Microsoft technology certifications. Prometric might have gone to IIMs and have showcased how "efficiently" they are conducting exams for top corporates and institutes ranging from Oracle, Microsoft to PMI etc and would have convinced them that this is the future way of conducting exams. Why would modern management gurus reject such a good option which could reduce labour and cost drastically.

Prometric had never developed system which can be used by 1000s of candidates in different locations for a single exam at a same time. I see a goof up of "technical expert" of prometric the third party vendor.Probabaly the "Software Architecht" the "Sr.Software Engineer" and the Java/.Net/Oracle "Project Leader/Manager" YES, the same "working man" not the "thinking man" is the real culprit here. kick him out.

now i will not even talk about the fortune 500 CEOs and their education , because i know a bikhari who is a multi millionaire in Hyderabad..and he never went to school

[desichacha]

Originally Posted by Indian

I appreciate many of your ideas , but i am struck with why you could not get a smple fact about IIM's core competency. You think their core competency is in managing administrative tasks of their contractors/vendors ?Why the hell somebody engages in a activity which is not defined as their CORE COMPETENCY ?

Yaar it is not about administrative jobs....Moving from pen to pencil to new age test methodology is a HUGE task..normally equated to transformation project. Organizational behavior prof should have been made in-charge to understand and recommend...

Plus this is *prestigious* task however trivial it is...so IIM A chairman should have been looking at it becuase it effects image...

I hope you understand what I am getting at...It is not about core competence or something..

IIM creates worldclass management practitioners because MBA is not *theory* but practical understanding of all aspects of business....

MBA professors need to be or are suppose to be people who have real world exp ( maybe I am wrong to assume that...)

[Indian]

Originally Posted by desichacha

I hope you understand what I am getting at...It is not about core competence or something..

MBA professors need to be or are suppose to be people who have real world exp ( maybe I am wrong to assume that...)

sir...i have got it ..in the first instance
i know what happens to a failed manager in corporate world, He is crucified brutally without any second thought. you want to do same thing to IIM chairman.

I will never ever do that. If you say ...both prometric and IIMs are responsible for the fiasco i may agree, but no way i can allow blaming IIMs singly.

70% of the IIM students are the ones who had worked previously in industries. they would have laughed and left IIMs the moment they hear the "theory based professor"

[desichacha]

maybe I am bit biased by western methodology
In my understanding..anything imp..you get your best man..ask him to deliver..he goes and does everythng..

same thing happened at IIM..some one must be incharge...why is his head not rolling..is the question..

or IIM want to teach Indian accountability...

and yes if a project flops PM should be crucified...if he has no balls to call out incompetent freshers,illogical requirements and IIM preparation focused tech leads then maybe he should go..unless he was smart enough and looking for job anyways

See this is another Indian thing..collective responsibility..there is no shit like that...One is incharge..a leader..if company does bad..first goes CEO and then rest happens..

when it stinks..it stinks from the top

[Indian]

i feel we have mixed up too many things.
rolling heads do not solve problems many times.. think 10 times before you kick out any one , what is the sole justification and purpose of kicking out some one ?

did they perform the job reasonably good enough and kickout serves the purpose of solving remaining problem. you kick people out and solves the problem, then there would be more kicking out than recruitment everywhere. we should turn on the profit and loss bulb ..before we decide to kick out any one. Human resources are valuable.
anyways more shit about the vendor here.


MUMBAI: Prometric, the company conducting the online Common Admission Test (CAT) to the IIMs, has been at the receiving end for the chaos and technological breakdowns plaguing the test this year. Now there are allegations that Prometric leaked the list of candidates registered for CAT to an online coaching portal.

Soon after registering for CAT, MBA aspirants from several parts of India received e-mails from the portal, offering to help them crack CAT in seven days. The portal has an alliance with a well-known CAT coaching class to share question banks for CAT preparation.

Both Prometric and the educational portal, however, denied any wrongdoing. An e-mail from Prometric quoted Ramesh Nava, its Asia-Pacific, Japan & Africa vice-president and general manager, as saying that the ‘‘security and integrity of the testing process, including the protection of candidate information are essential elements of Prometric’s global business’’. ‘‘We take this responsibility very seriously. Prometric maintains a sophisticated level of network security protocols that provide multi-layered protection of all data that comes into, or out of, our organisation. All data is encrypted during all phases of transmission to and from public and private networks,’’ the mail added.

It also said there were ‘‘any number of locations besides Prometric where general information regarding candidates’’ could be found and which could generate a soliciting of candidates and students. ‘‘None the less, Prometric constantly reviews all security processes and will diligently enact all adequate safeguards for the data that will be generated for the test taken by the candidates,’’ the e-mail said.

The education portal’s marketing head said the organisation had ‘‘strong work ethics’’. ‘‘We have used standard marketing tools to reach out to candidates. We have sent out e-mails to a huge number of people, whose details we have accessed from a variety of sources,’’ she added.

But the details in the e-mails received by CAT aspirants indicate otherwise. One of them went to Arks Srinivas, director of another CAT coaching class, who signed up for the CAT exam this year. ‘‘Even the names of candidates mentioned in the e-mail are in the same form that was used for CAT registration,’’ Srinivas said. ‘‘This has taken place on such a large scale that I do not think it could have been a coincidence. This leads me to believe that data on candidates was leaked. No other source would have such precise information on the CAT database.’
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...ow/5302470.cms